


Resolution

by acaseofthemondays



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Catharsis, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-09-06 21:46:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8770579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acaseofthemondays/pseuds/acaseofthemondays
Summary: I wrote this back in May in response to all the feels after watching "Firebird". Because ouch.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this back in May in response to all the feels after watching "Firebird". Because ouch.

He isn’t sure how long he stands there, eyes locked on the brasswork of the elevator. He knows she isn’t coming back. He knows and he knows and he knows. His True Love. His Emma. She is _never_ coming back.

Time passes strangely in the Underworld, too fast and too slow all at once. He could have stood there for an hour or a century. But it is irrelevant. Eventually he does move though. Joints creaking with the effort of moving again, and he feels ancient in this moment. The years of loss and pain etched into his soul, on his face. He turns away from the elevator, heading back toward the source of his lost hope and anguish. He can’t quite bring himself to get in the lift yet. Eventually he’ll have to in order to fulfill his promise to Emma…but not yet. Not when his salvation has so recently been ripped from his grasp. He can’t take that ride when his heart is still _screaming_ at him that he should be standing next to her. On his way to Storybrooke, his home. Their home. Her home now.

Gods, he’s so tired. And the tears keep falling. Who knew the dead could cry? He follows his feet, meandering blindly until he reaches the stump of the tree, the tips of his shoes butting up against the base of the lifeless thing. Dead and useless, he chuckles darkly to himself. They are one and the same. Dead and useless. The dark humor of the moment quickly fades, and he sinks to his knees, forehead bumping against the tree with a hollow thunk. He breathes through his nose, shallow, raking breaths. Dragging in and out of his chest, in time to the soft, continual tapping of his forehead to tree trunk.

Until he breaks.

The violence that he had kept under his skin for centuries breaks loose once again. He thought it had died when he’d found his True Love. But perhaps it had just laid dormant, waiting to rear up again whenever he lost her. He always loses in the end, the darkness would know this, of course. So with fist and hook he tears at the symbol of his lost hope. No, not lost. Stolen. Stolen and murdered before it could ever come to fruition. A cruel joke. An ugly trick. Ugly as sin, his sin. Ugly as the life he had lead for so much longer than is natural. Ugly as the scars he was leaving in the bark of that damnable, gods-forsaken tree.

The scream that tears from his throat is a horrific thing. Animalistic, leaving his throat raw and the sharp tang of blood on his tongue. With that, the violence dies out of him. He rolls to his side, sinking to the earth. The sobs keep rolling from his raw, aching chest. And the tears, Gods, will they ever stop? They flow freely down his face, catching at his chin before falling on the roots of the ambrosia tree. He is so sure that they would have dried up by now. But, perhaps, it is the sea that has always run in his veins. Perhaps he has oceans left to cry, and once he’s drained every last drop of those heartbroken seas from his veins, maybe then he’ll be able to stand. Maybe when he has been wrung out to completion, he’ll be able to keep his word to his beloved and move on. Alone. Again.

*******

But not all gods are cruel. Not all of their ilk are unkind. And sometimes, the gods hear the prayers of the forsaken, and they answer with salvation.

Killian Jones, wretched creature, abandoned and forsaken for the entirety of his existence, had finally been heard. The tears of his heart had soaked into the ambrosia tree, and She had heard the prayers there, the holy love that had imbued each drop.

The semi-sentient thing was older than the gods themselves, She had been the one to grant them their immortality, after all. She had seen every age of this world and countless others. And She knew that this sobbing creature, crying out for his lost love, was pure and good and righteous. Even after the humiliation and betrayal of Hades’ cutting into Her beautiful flesh, killing Her graceful limbs and turning Her life-giving blossoms to dust, even then, the spark of Her existence could not be completely extinguished. And bless this poor creature, for with each anguished tear, he was giving Her life. The supplications of the lost had always been dear to Her.

She would give this man a gift, then. A blessing, a boon, in gratitude to the life that he was bleeding onto Her roots. A single blossom, beautiful and perfect, small and tender, for this man and this man alone. And at the center of Her blessed bloom, the smallest droplet of nectar. Not enough for eternal life, but just enough to return him to the life he so desperately desires. With his Truest Love. His darling Emma.

Yes, She thinks, this gift I shall grant to him.


End file.
